Comparing three films from three different time periods: Psycho, The Shining and The Others

The three films I’ve researched, Psycho, The Shining and The Others all fall into the genre of a thriller films, but all come from different time periods. Psycho was made in 1960, The Shining was made in 1980 and The Others was made in 2001. As these films are from such different times in cinema, it helps us see how Thriller has developed over time, what has changed and what has stayed the same.

For this essay, I watched the shower scene from Psycho, one of the most famous scenes in cinema history. In this scene, the music has a huge impact on the way the scene pans out. The non-digetic sound used by Hitchcock helps to build suspense at the beginning of the scene, but as this fades out to the digetic sounds of the running of the shower, we as the audience can understand how victim wouldn’t have been able to hear the killer approaching her. By doing this, Hitchcock is submersing the audience in the scene, and putting them on the edge of their seats, like a thriller is supposed to do. The sudden screech of non-digetic sound when the shower curtain is ripped back and the digetic sound of the woman screaming is enough to shock the audience and make them jump, which makes this scene a lot scarier than we originally suspected it to be. This is also complimented by the fact that the film is in black and white, as the shadow cast on the shower curtain by the killer is a lot more impactful than being able to see the killers face, as it keeps the element of mystery and makes us think and question who this person is. Towards the end of the scene, we see an extreme close up of what is presumably blood running into the plughole, which then transitions into an extreme close up of the woman’s eye, and then pans out to show her face. This makes us an audience feel empathetic towards the woman, as we don’t expect to see her dead body lying in this shower. However, the tell-tale sign that this thriller
was filmed in the 1960’s in the prominence of the Male Gaze Theory throughout the scene. The woman in this clip is clearing being objectified, as the main focus of her scene is her naked body, even when she is dead. We see close up shots of different parts of her body, but despite not seeing her whole naked body at once, it is clear that Alfred Hitchcock is appealing to the typical male audience of thriller films. He uses the woman to make this scene more upsetting and shocking, as this is not a situation that we would expect to see
a woman in.

Another film that uses actors to provide its audience with this shock factor is The Shining. Stanley Kubrick uses children in the scene with the two twin girls to upset his audience. This scene starts with a tracking shot of the young boy cycling through the halls of a hospital or home, and we see him come to a halt when twin girls appear at the end of the hallway. This scene uses mise-en-scene to indicate that these girls are from a different time period to the young boy, as they are wearing very old looking dresses compared to the boy’s jumper and shorts. The colour scheme throughout the scene is very pale colours, like light blue, white and cream which shows the innocence of the young girls, and makes the image of the dead girls even more shocking, as the scene is now covered in blood, and the red is a large contrast to the image in front of us. This means that the flash of the image has even more impact. In the frame, we can see two different camera angles. One angle is a close up of the little boy in the films face, where the other angle is the two twin girls at the end of the corridor who he is staring at. When the scene suddenly cuts two the image of the two girls dead on the floor, with blood covering them and every surface of the hallway, not only shock the audience, it raises so many questions, like thrillers are supposed to do. Who killed them? Why were they killed?

Why are they in the hallway? Why have they appeared to the young boy? The use of the bright red blood in this scene also makes it so much more impactful than the black and white shots in Psycho, as it shocks the audience and makes us almost feel uncomfortable, as we feel like we shouldn’t be looking at these young girls. This is different to Psycho, as in Psycho Hitchcock wants us to infer that the woman has died and think about it for ourselves, whereas Kubrick in The Shining leaves no room for us to wonder whether or not these girls are dead.

One of the main things that connects these three films is that the thing that is scaring us as an audience is human. In The Shining, Psycho and The Others, whether the person is alive or a ghost, that is the shock factor to the film.

In the fog scene of The Others, the setting also has an impact on our uncertainty of what’s going to happen as an audience. The fact that the protagonist is standing in a woods, surrounded in fog and she can’t see ahead of her, and we can’t see what’s ahead of her either, makes us concerned for her well being. The non-digetic sound of the crash indicates that something is about to happen. This is an element used by all 3 directors in all of the films, every time something dramatic or impactful to the story line is about to happen, we hear some sort of loud, shocking noise. When the man appears through the fog, who is her husband, from the tone in her voice when she sees him, we as an audience can understand that she feels relieved, but from knowing what happens in this film, we can’t be too sure

of this is reality. The mise-en-scene of the costume of her husband shows us that he has come straight from the war to see his wife, but these dirty clothes compared those of his wife show the difference between life at home and life in the war. However, the extreme close up of the wife’s face compared to her husband’s makes us wonder why her husband isn’t happy to see her after being away for so long.

In conclusion, these three films all make us as an audience question and think about what is going on in the film, all of the directors incorporate digetic and non-digetic sound to help the audience feel submersed in the film and all three films use people for the scary element of the film, making us feel more connected to the characters and the scene.